Wednesday, June 12, 2013

FTDNA has announced a limited time sale of transfers of your autosomal DNA test results from 23andMe (Relative Finder) and Ancestry. The advantages of so doing are primarily to allow you to "fish in another pond" for potential cousins who have tested at FTDNA but not at the service at which you have already tested and to be able to compare your all your matches with FTDNA's analysis tools. If you already have Family Finder results, you will gain only a very minimal benefit from such a transfer. Note below that earlier versions of 23andMe's Relative Finder test are not compatible with the upgrade process.

3 comments:

Thanks for the heads up on the transfer. I just transferred my brother's DNA from Ancestry and just may do another brother from 23andme! However, I have receive the least amount of connections through FTDNA than any other site. What's up with that?

There are now 3 companies which test autosomal DNA and give genealogicaly relevant information. GENO 2.0 from National Geographic is aimed primarily at where our ancestors were thousands of years ago -- long before we had surnames.

Of the other 3, FTDNA is the oldest having been founded in 2000. It is the only one focus exclusively on genetic genealogy. FTDNA's tools, matching mechanism and clientele are all aimed at using DNA to advance our genealogical research. It is the only one of the big 3 that emphasizes Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA testing. However, its database of autosomal testers is not the largest.

23andMe only tests autosomal DNA and probably has a quarter of a million individuals tested. However, many of those people tested for the health related results and do not respond to genealogists who match them and want to identify common ancestors.

Ancestry is the latest entrant into this game. They were able to rely on those of us who subscribe to their database to build up DNA samples quickly. Both 23andMe and FTDNA have been offering autosomal testing for more than three years. Ancestry only about a year and their tools for "exploiting" and understanding our matches are not as mature as those of the other two. That may be coming.

Some of us genetic genealogist junkies have tested at all of them so our test results are in multiple databases.